AfDB Marks World Food Day and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

On 16 and 17 October 2011, the international community will mark two special days that are at the core of the work of the African Development Bank

The first is World Food Day and the second is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

On World Food Day, AfDB Vice President Kemal El-Kheshen will gather with various eminent personalities and representatives of international organizations in Des Moines, USA, where the annual Borlaug Dialogue on the World Food Prize will take place.

Participants will review the effects of the recent skyrocketing food prices and the level of hunger such inflation might cause in the future.

Already the Horn of Africa faces one of the highest rates of malnutrition in the world.The causes of extreme hunger are well-known – poverty, inadequate resources, drought and climate change.

In the Horn alone, drought has stricken more than 12 million people. It is estimated that almost 250 million people in sub-Saharan Africa will suffer prolonged hunger by 2020.

The other day being marked is no less challenging. The 2011 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty aims at promoting people’s awareness of the urgency to make poverty and destitution a thing of the past across the world, particularly in developing countries.

This year’s theme is: “Working together out of poverty”. It calls for a truly global anti-poverty alliance, where both developed and developing countries work together as a global village. The theme also envisages an inclusive growth approach to development, a theme that is championed by the African Development Bank.

In carrying out its poverty reduction mandate over the years, the AfDB has mobilized substantial resources, in terms of loans, grants and technical assistance, for economic and agricultural development in its regional member countries.

Working with African governments, bilateral and other multilateral development agencies, the Bank has shared its core development values, solutions and know-how to help Africa meet the greatest challenges of today.

Those challenges include how to ensure food and nutrition security and above all to reduce and eventually eliminate hunger and poverty.